shelleystans - Tumblr blog

[shelleystans]

human brain is so easy to manipulate its stupid. sun is out longer in evening = life is worth living...read some negative social media posts = everybody hates me...read one interesting article = i have the scholar's ambition

[shelleystans]

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Missouri, February 21, 1897

[shelleystans]

ive fallen into a bit of a rabbit hole of reading about the stories of ancient intersex people transitioning socially from one gender to the other as depicted in diodorus siculus's writing and i was just. so thrilled by the way he describes his reasoning for telling these stories- not for entertainment, but the widen his readers' perspectives

like yes he's still an ancient author and some of the ways he talks about the topic arent up to par with modern understanding, but...it gives you a sense of hope and connection to the humanity that has always existed in us

[shelleystans]

i'm so glad someone else was bitchy about that post bc i couldn't be bothered to when i saw it. the reason that literacy rates in the usa are poor is because of rising inequality and also because kids are just straight up being taught to read wrong. not because of fucking fanfiction or YA or 'puriteens' or whatever the fuck else is the bugbear of the week for people who still stake their self esteem on their high school english grades

[shelleystans]

[shelleystans]

idk who needs to hear this rn but suffering is not noble. take the tylenol

[shelleystans]

Cerberus' corner in the Domus Plutonia is anything but modest 🐕💎🪴

February 2023's illustration is a luxurious portrait of the 3x goodest boi - Cerberus! Last month, one of my patrons suggested a cthonic deity for February to celebrate the changing of the seasons. I was thinking of Hades, but as I researched reference images Cerberus popped up and inspiration struck! I'm imagining in this reality Hades' and Persephones' palace isnt all dark and gloomy, and has some nice cozy lit up areas. And that they let Cerberus inside when he's not out guarding.

patreon.com/flaroh

[shelleystans]

Saturnalia in Vindolanda 🪔🌨️🌲🏺

✨Get your own download file, postcard print, and/or sticker on my Patreon! I've also done a write-up on the inspiration and research behind this piece✨

December's illustration is a cozy scene of the vicus' neighbours coming together for a boozy Saturnalia 🥂 From December 17-23, Romans celebrated the god Saturn by feasting, exchanging gifts, lighting lamps, and switching up the normal societal class structures 🪔🪴🥧

[shelleystans]

― E.M. Forster, Howards End

[text ID: The house was very quiet, and the fog—we are in November now—pressed against the windows like an excluded ghost.]

[shelleystans]

No blue check marks here, but you can verify my identity in the sphragis at the end of my poem or by finding the acrostic of my name hidden somewhere in the middle

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[shelleystans]

Patroclus in TSOA: Achilles is like the summer sun and the scent of figs and can everyone stop being so mean? 🥺

Patroclus in the Iliad and Hades: Hypocrite that you are, for you trust the chemicals in your brain to tell you that they are chemicals. All Knowledge is ultimately based on that which we cannot prove. Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?

[shelleystans]

I’m grateful to whoever invented Poor Little Meow Meow taxonomical classification of men, because genus Himbo was becoming irresponsibly over-applied.

[shelleystans]

So I was listening to a podcast on ancient history that focused on queer women in Greece and Rome and I wanted to get a sense for how widespread are some of the assumptions we make about ancient sexuality.

Those who have studied gender and sexuality in Greece and Rome have surely come across the most popular theory addressing the definitions of ancient sexuality, that modern conceptions of sexuality (hetero- and homosexuality) were nonexistent and instead ones sexuality was defined by specific sex acts. Normative sexuality involved a binary between the one penetrating and the one being penetrated. Thus, for a man, penetrating a woman or another man was within the bounds of normative sexual behavior, as was a woman being penetrated. This is obviously penis-centered in nature and thus anything not involving a penis falls outside the bounds of normative sexuality, or at least that is what we assume. We do not have enough historical evidence to make claims about how sexual acts between women were viewed by society in Greece and Rome (as the podcast did) because our understanding of ancient sexuality is focused on this binary penetrator and penetrated.

For all we know, women could engage in sexually pleasurable relationships with other women and no one batted an eye (I am not saying they did, just that it could have been the case). What I am saying is that based on our source material it is equally possible that pleasure between women was not talked about because it was not seen as anything unordinary.

Martial has two epigrams about a "monstrous" woman (Bassus) who has sex with other women, but his gripe is that she tries too much to be "like a man" not specifically that she has sex with women.

One of the other things that really bothered me about the podcast was the assumption that to be a penetrator meant to absolutely dominate, and thus that being penetrated automatically must mean being on the receiving end of something hostile and violent. This might be the end result of using terminology like dominant and submissive for ancient sexual roles which have taken on specifically modern connotations. Nevertheless, it is an absurd assumption to make and leads to some equating the majority of ancient sex with rape.

Lastly, to characterize ancient pederasty as "heteronormative" is just a bad take.

[shelleystans]

list of mundane things that feel like ancient human rituals

cleaning or wipe your bare feet

breaking off a piece of bread and handing it to someone

putting the weight of a basket on your hip or head

eating nuts or berries while hunched over close to the ground

seeing something startling just out of your line of sight and very quickly stepping or leaping on to a larger object to get a better view

cupping your hands into running water to wash your face

the unanimous protection of a baby or child in a public space where women are present

when an elderly woman laughs and grips your forearm tightly

[shelleystans]